


Endless Nightmares

by orphan_account



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bathing/Washing, Blood, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Heavy Angst, Heavy Drinking, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Loneliness, Minor Character Death, Needles, Nightmares, Oops, Self-Hatred, Yut Lung is an Absolute Mess, mentions of vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 08:53:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17321861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Trying to forget his brothers and their abuse, Yut Lung's drinking problem gets worse and he ends up neglecting himself to the point where he no longer eats and spends his days yelling at his servants.Sing tries to tell Yut Lung that he's worth more than this.Written for Banana Fish Angst Week. Prompt: Jan 6 - Forget





	Endless Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Does it still count as angst if the ending isn't a complete downer? I dunno.
> 
> I probably made this too dark... I love Yut Lung, I promise, he just needs somebody to love him :(.
> 
> Also I don't know how to tag this but Yut Lung kills Hua Lung with a needle in this, so if that squicks you out, my bad.

Whoever said alcohol made you forget was a goddamned liar, or so Yut Lung thought. Alcohol seemed to have the opposite effect on him: it made him remember everything. The cries of his mother, his brothers having their way with her, and some years later having their way with him...

It brought back the memories he'd long since tried to suppress. Memories he didn't know he still had. All the pain and abuse flooded back as he drank, so he drank more to try and make it stop.

Sometimes, the memories crept up on him in his sleep. Sometimes, he'd be trapped in seemingly endless nightmares where he couldn't escape from Wang Lung, who'd laugh at him until he forced himself to wake up. Even then he could still hear his brother. Being awake only slightly lessened the intensity of the nightmares.

When he threw up, he wasn't sure if it was from the dreams or the alcohol or both. He didn't care. He'd stopped caring a long time ago.

 

His days consisted of yelling at the servants for being in the same room as him, drinking, sleeping, drinking some more, yelling at everyone again, maybe taking a bath. His nights consisted of drinking, sometimes eating dinner, drinking some more, yelling at whoever was still awake and then crying himself to sleep.

His pants were starting to get too loose on him, so he mostly wore robes and dressing gowns. His hair was always down, there was no need to keep up appearances anymore.

 

Blanca had told him that there were people who loved him. But Yut Lung knew that that wasn't true. Blanca was also a goddamned liar. Nobody had ever loved Yut Lung, and nobody would ever love Yut Lung. He didn't love himself. He _couldn't_ love himself. Not after what he'd done, and not after what had been done to him.

 

A few of his servants kept trying to get him to eat. Food wasn't appealing to him. He could barely keep a small bowl of noodle soup down. Most of the time he found himself throwing his food back up.

Hua Lung was still there, in theory. He was confined to a wheelchair now and didn't respond to Yut Lung anymore. At first, Yut Lung had thought of it as a blessing, but now he wished his brother would at least acknowledge him. He could insult him, yell at him, even slap him across the face and yet he wouldn't react in any way. The once proud, haughty Hua Lung who used to have complete control over his youngest brother. He still controlled him, in a sense.

Yut Lung decided it was better not having him around. Maybe if Hua Lung was gone, his nightmares would ease.

He unearthed one of his needles that he'd stowed away in a spare room. It was still stained with flecks of blood from one of his bothers. He didn't remember which one.

Slowly, he rammed the needle into Hua Lung's neck, in the exact spot he'd been taught by Hua Lung himself to pierce. As the needle slid further and further below his brother's skin, it became coated with more blood.

Yet Hua Lung still didn't react. He sat there, vacant and drooling, probably not even aware of what was being done to him.

The needle resisted once it was all the way in. Yut Lung applied pressure like he'd been told to and twisted the needle around slowly, as blood flowed from the hole he'd made in Hua Lung's neck. Some ended up on the back of Yut Lung's hand and his fingers.

Yut Lung withdrew the needle. He rested his head on Hua Lung's chest to see if he was still breathing. He couldn't detect a heartbeat.

He stood up and left the room, not bothering to patch up the wound he'd caused. He didn't say goodbye to his brother, he wouldn't have heard him. There were no goodbyes to be had, anyway.

He informed his servants that Hua Lung had died and told them to deal with it. It wasn't his problem anymore.

His brothers were dead, all six of them. He'd killed them all, and he felt nothing. He'd spent his whole life building up to it. It had been the one thing keeping him from giving up entirely. He didn't feel satisfied, he didn't feel regret. He'd avenged his mother, and yet... nothing had changed. They still haunted him. They still owned him. Everything he did was still because of them.

 

Yut Lung drank an extra bottle of champagne that night. He never knew how much he drank, he stopped counting after the third bottle.

A bath sounded appealing to him as he lay on his sofa, feeling flushed from the alcohol. He couldn't recall the last time he'd bathed. He was pretty sure it wasn't yesterday. A bath would help wash Hua Lung's blood off him.

Yut Lung knelt on the floor as he watched the bath fill with water. The cool tiles of the bathroom and porcelain of the bath itself felt nice against his skin.

Once the bath was full, he shakily got in. The blood from Hua Lung mixed with the warm water as it washed off his hand. He sunk down, keeping his nose barely above the surface.

The bathroom door opened. He wasn't sure how long he'd been there and assumed one of the servants had come looking for him. He reluctantly sat up.

"The fuck are you doing?"

Sing was standing over the bath, looking down at him. He looked scared, and Yut Lung didn't know why. He was just taking a bath, after all.

 

Sing hadn't visited him in months. Yut Lung was surprised Sing had remembered him at all. Everyone else had abandoned him. Nobody had bothered to check on him. Ash and Eiji were, to his knowledge, in Japan. Blanca was back in the Caribbean, probably entertaining far too many women for his own good. He didn't know what Sing had been doing. Not that it mattered.

"I'm taking a bath," Yut Lung replied flatly.

"Yeah, no, dude, that's not what I mean," Sing said. "It's 11PM, most people don't take baths at 11PM." Yut Lung wondered how long he'd been in the bath. It hadn't been that late when he'd started drinking that evening.

"I can do what I want," Yut Lung said. Why was Sing so on edge?

"You... You're still wearing your dressing gown," Sing frowned. "One of your servants rang me from your phone because you'd been in the bathroom for over an hour and he said he was too scared to come and check on you in case you screamed at him again. Or in case you were dead."

Yut Lung had considered it. He'd thought about sinking completely under the water for a moment. He'd thought about using his needle on himself when he'd first picked it up.

But that would just be letting his brothers win. That would be saying that he was a failure, like they'd always told him. Even if they still haunted him, still had control over him, he wasn't going to give in to them entirely. Not yet.

"I... forgot to take my gown off," Yut Lung mumbled. "And I'm not gonna die, don't be stupid."

Sing leant over and pulled Yut Lung up into a standing position, holding him under his shoulders, water sloshing over the edge of the bath as he did so. "You _are_ going to die at this rate. I heard from them. You do nothing but drink and yell at them. You hardly eat anything anymore, and what you _do_ eat, you throw up. You sleep all day. You don't take care of yourself."

"There's no point," Yut Lung said, trying and failing to free himself from Sing's grip. "I don't deserve to take care of myself."

Sing pulled Yut Lung closer to him and dragged him out of the bath. Yut Lung was too tired to resist him anymore. Sing sat Yut Lung down on the floor before taking the plug out.

"Yes you do," Sing said over the sound of the draining water, kneeling down so that he was at eye-level with Yut Lung. "You don't deserve this. You deserve better than this. Much better than this."

"I don--" Yut Lung began, his voice shaking.

" _Yes you do_ ," Sing repeated. "Please. Please stop doing this to yourself." There was a look of desperation in his eyes. Yut Lung was confused by this. What was Sing trying to do? What was in it for him?

"HOW?!" Yut Lung yelled, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. "WHAT THE FUCK AM I MEANT TO _DO_ , THEN, SING?" All he knew how to do was wallow around in self-hatred and loathing. He didn't know anything else. This was who he was.

"There's help out there," Sing explained slowly. "I can't help you, but there are people who can. You need a professional."

 

It was just like what Blanca had told him. Blanca had told him what to do, but Blanca wasn't going to help him with it. Sing was exactly the same. And he'd end up abandoning Yut Lung, too.

 

"W-Why are you doing this?" Yut Lung sobbed, unable to stop the tears overflowing. "This doesn't make sense! You shouldn't be here!"

Sing placed a hand on Yut Lung's shoulder. "I'm doing this because I want to help you," he said. "I... If I'd known how bad you were, I would've come much sooner. I know I took too long, and I regret it. I thought you'd be okay."

"But you have no reason to help me!" Yut Lung wailed, his vision now rather blurry.

"Do I _need_ a reason?" Sing asked.

Yut Lung gazed over at him. Sing's look of desperation was now mixed with a hint of determination.

 

 _Did_ he need a reason? Of course he did. Everybody had reasons for doing things.

"You do," Yut Lung choked. "You want to gain something out of this." That was how it worked with everyone.

"Yeah, I do," Sing said. Yut Lung went to reply, but Sing continued, "What I want is for you to get better. For you to stop drinking. To stop taking baths late at night without taking your clothes off. To start eating again. For you to learn to love yourself."

 _Love_.

Yut Lung hated that word when other people said it. It was a word that made him completely and utterly aware of how alone he was. Nobody loved him.

 

"I... I _can't_ ," Yut Lung sobbed. "That's impossible for me. I'm--"

"You can," Sing said. "You can and you will. I'll help you. I'll find you doctors who'll help you. It won't be easy, but I know you can do it. Please."

"But _why_?" Yut Lung repeated, getting annoyed.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Sing sighed. "It's because I care about you, you idiot. Because I want what's best for you, okay? You understand that, don't you?"

Yut Lung wiped his tears away with his hand. The one that hadn't been stained with Hua Lung's blood.

"Alright," he said quietly. "You win. I'll... I can't promise anything. But I'll try."

 

Yut Lung was taken aback by Sing tightly hugging him. Did he not care if he was making his own clothes wet? Oh well.

"Thank you," Sing whispered. "I know you'll be able to overcome this. You'll see."

"Why... do you have so much faith in me, Sing?" Yut Lung found himself asking.

Sing let Yut Lung go and sat back up, a goofy grin on his face. "Because I know how strong you are. Now c'mon, let's get you out of this dressing gown and into some fresh pajamas, yeah?"

"...Yeah."

 

Maybe this had been what Blanca had meant. Sing had come back for him, despite everything. Yut Lung still didn't know if Sing _actually_ cared about him or if he was just saying that, but he wanted to believe he actually cared.

 

Yut Lung eventually stopped drinking nearly as much (he still allowed himself two glasses of champagne a night). He found himself able to eat three meals a day and keep the food down. He wasn't sure if he loved himself, as Sing had asked him to, but maybe he would one day. He had at least started styling his hair again and wore clothes that fit properly.

Sometimes, his brothers still followed him into his dreams, but his memories of them were becoming faded. He'd won in the end, after all. He was no longer controlled by his brothers. He was only controlled by himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Yut Lung, Sing DOES care about you, please trust him. He's a good kiddo.


End file.
